I feel that I’ve loved many people in my life but very few have truly loved me. Some said they did, but words are cheap. Especially when they come out of the mouth of a man like you. Because of you I now find most men to be slobbering, indecisive fools to whom love and sex are equivalent. I worry that I’ll feel that way for the rest of my life. I used to think that sex was a sacred thing, a joy, a fulfillment of life as God designed it to be. I’m still sure it was supposed to be that way—the purest physical connection a man and woman can make, echoing the spiritual connection, as well—but since that night I have learned what cruelty is, shame, degradation, ugliness. For the first time in my life I look down at the ground when I speak to people. I won’t look in mirrors. I feel dirty and inferior. I don’t laugh and I won’t smile. I’m aware that I’m not pretty, that I have a pudgy, sagging body, godawful hair. My dad calls me a whore. He even points at whores on the street when we’re driving and tells me the only way I’ll ever snag a man now is if I dress like a whore and wear makeup like one. Lots of lipstick and tight clothes, he says. He’s turned into such a bastard. You’d probably like him. Be the best of friends, you two.

Everything about me that I always thought was good and kind or special has been ridiculed by him, scorned, criticized, and crushed. Still, I wonder why I’ve allowed myself to feel this way. To be compared by your own father to a common prostitute and come up lacking. Sometimes I almost believe his rantings.

I don’t know if I want people near me anymore. I’m tired of the effort it takes to keep friends and loved ones. Yet I need love and friendship—and I fight that need. I want to drive everyone away. I don’t want to be hurt again, not like that. I don’t want what every other woman in this town has settled for, to be dominated by a man, to be told what to do and when to do it. If I ever subject myself to that again I’ll scream. I scream inside now and can’t wait for those times when I’m alone so I won’t have to hold it in anymore.

And hate. I feel hate now as I never have before. Cold and calculating, not a normal heated rage that is spent quickly. A year of holding this rage inside has taught me well. Keep that guard up. I often find myself fantasizing about revenge. Mom says, No, don’t be like that. Read your Bible and be Christian. I threw my Bible away. Christianity doesn’t apply here. I know that I’m wrong even as I write this, but don’t I hate as well as I love? The “old” me is so far away, so distant—I don’t think I’d recognize her if she were to come around. She really believed she was loved, cherished, and respected by everyone who knew her. She didn’t know that what I have lived even existed.